


Bloodstripes and Breathing

by disamphigory



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Arguing, Corellia, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Post-Battle of Yavin, Shopping, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, but very brief and not the point!, corellia is space ireland I don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 13:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10279046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disamphigory/pseuds/disamphigory
Summary: "Today wasn’t about feelings, it was about getting a goddamn skirt with her goddamn blood stripes so she could go home to her goddamn fiancé and her fiancé's goddamn galaxy reconstruction plan and find a way to tell her goddamn fiancé that her goddamn fiancé was getting a goddamn wife."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because someone said "trans han solo" and my brain jittered off a cliff. Also, writing Han/Leia conversations is exhausting.

**Corellia**

The issue wasn’t that she was radically different than before, it was that no one would take an order on Corellia for sewing blood stripes onto a skirt.

“But why do you need it on a _skirt_ , Solo? We make regulation pants in, uh, multiple cuts—“

“—I need the skirt, and if you can’t do this, O-Rihli, I’ll get someone else,” Hana said, and shook her handful of navy blue fabric at the tailor, whose shop had sewn in the blood stripes for at least five generations of the Solo clan. They were a warlike bunch, what was left of them, quick to fight and quicker to laugh, and they had been coming to this one damn tailor—Hana had gone three systems out of the way on her trip back to Leia explicitly for this—for at least a century.

“You know you can’t _marry_ _into_ a blood stripe, Solo,” O-Rihli was saying. “So no matter how much your Princess—"

“—not _my_ princess, _a_ princess—“ Solo interjected in knee-jerk fashion.

“—wants some blood stripes to go with her coronation robes or whatever, I won’t do it. And you won’t find anyone on this rock who will. I’m sorry, but that’s tradition,” O-Rihli finished.

“Oh for Force’s sake, you old coot, it’s for _me_!” Hana roared, reaching the end of her rope.

O-Rihli shut up for once, halfway worked up to his well-trod rant against “legitimizing the monarchial system of government through word and deed” and stared at Hana.

“For, for you?” O-Rihli repeated.

“Yes. The skirt is for _me_. I’ve got a—I’m a wom—the skirt is for _me_. And now _I_ know it’s for me, _you_ know it’s for me, and for about, oh—“ Hana did some very quick math, calculating travel times, shaving off time for shortcuts, adding in time for mistakes or whatever Leia would deem necessary for Hana to do in this new republic of hers, and healer visits, “—a _full year_ , O-Rihli, we will be the only two on this planet to know it.”

“But what in the galaxy, _for_?“ O-Rihli said, leaning forward to take the fabric now that it wasn’t a matter of Hana throwing away her culture and more a curious blip in his daily shop routine.

Hana did what she did best and started with an accusation. “Didn’t think you were so washed up on this backwater planet you’d never heard that gender isn’t determined by what you shoot out your mom with.” The words echoed in the small shop and she watched O-Rihli work his way through the statement and several face expressions until settling on a shopkeeper smile tinged with a touch of compassion.

O-Rihli took a physical step back and adopted a conciliatory tone. “Of, of course! I’m just, uh, _surprised_ , uh, Miss Solo??” he offered.

Hana growled and pointed her finger at O-Rihli, because the form of address made her feel happy feelings and today wasn’t about feelings, it was about getting a goddamn skirt with her goddamn blood stripes so she could go home to her goddamn fiance and her fiance’s goddamn galaxy reconstruction plan and find a way to tell her goddamn fiance that her goddamn fiance wasgetting a goddamn wife.

“You haven’t called me anything but _Solo_  since I dropped the Lieutenant’ on the way out of the Empire’s Navy, so don’t start that shit with me.  _Miss_ Solo, indeed.“

“Yes si-ma’am—Solo,” O-Rihli said, and started spreading the blue fabric on the counter and beckoning the SCSR-17 droid over from the corner.

Hana, business adjourned, dropped her pointed finger. “I’ll be back through the system in a month, O-Rihli,”

O-Rihli nodded.

“Just you and me, O-Rihli. I know how this planet talks, like there’s nothing better to do than yap on about people’s personal business for a bit of _craic_.”

O-Rihli nodded and waved his hand, “Of course, Solo. My lips are sealed tighter than a—“ he stopped mid phrase and Hana raised her eyebrows. Usually O-Rihli never shied away from a colorful, if illustrative, metaphor.

“My lips are sealed,” he repeated.

Hana cocked her fingers at him and nodded with narrowed eyes. “You better.”

 

**Coruscant**

It was a 10 hour trip in the Falcon back to their flat in Coruscant, so naturally Leia had known about Hana’s side trip to her home planet for eight hours by the time Hana got back. She docked the Falcon at a seamier space pad on a lower level, nodded cursorily to her Sabacc buddies with an unspoken promise for later, and took the first taxi up forty levels and a few clicks north to Leia’s more well-heeled flat. In the living room, Leia was attempting to patch together a reluctant galaxy with spacer tape and sheer force of personality.

“And if I hear you say ‘but they were _just following orders_ ’ again, Senator, I will personally show you the orders enacted upon your _ARSE_ –” Leia was informing a hologram, and Hana quirked her mouth to the side. It was nice to see Leia’s sharp tongue unleashed on people who weren’t Hana, sometimes. She listened to the rest of the call while divesting herself of weapons and the extra gear that made her one of the best damn smugglers in the galaxy, even if jobs were currently being shunted aside for her love life. She got down to setting her boot knives into their appropriate drawers on the entryway table when Leia wrapped up her call with some dire threats and an incongruent “Your cooperation is appreciated, Senator. My best to your family.”

Hana continued placing weapons in their various homes, absently coiling a lariat last used on Nar Shadda in one of the unending campaigns directly after Yavin IV, shoulders hunching as she felt Leia’s considering gaze on her back. The chains in the lariat _plinked_ into place and the silence stretched, loaded like an old slug thrower, until Hana turned and said, defensively, “ _What_ , your highnessness?”

Leia’s eyes darted up and down her body and Hana bit the back side of her tongue as her only flinch. “Nice to see you again, too, love.”

Hana opened her hands, then closed them. “Glad to be here, _honey_. Miss me?” She gestured to all of, well, what little she brought to offer.

Leia stepped forward, a wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Of course.”

Hana stepped into Leia’s body space and playfully tugged on one of the loops of Leia’s intricate braids. “Meetings, today?” she asked. The braids were usually a better indication of Leia’s day than outfits, because Leia’s comfortable (Hana had tried them, don’t ask) olive green leggings and tunic were easy to put on after a day out, but braids took forever.

“Too many,” Leia said, and looked up at Hana’s chin. Hana enjoyed being taller than Leia. Whatever else was going on with her, there wasn’t a universe where Leia was ever taller than any version of Hana, and that felt right.

“Anyone I need to beat up?” Hana asked, somewhat seriously. You never knew.

“You took a detour to Corellia?” Leia asked instead of replying, because talking with Leia was like skipping the Falcon through the Maw all over again, every goddamn time.

Hana stepped back and pointed a finger at her fiance. “You’re having me followed now?”

Leia drew herself up another scant centimeter. “People want to let me know about your whereabouts. I don’t have to _try_ to know about,” her voice stumbled, “about your life. People offer me information, all the time.”

“I was there ten hours ago!” Hana said, noting the catch in Leia’s voice and deciding that, as always, running was the better part of valor, and to side-step the _what_ of the information in favor of a better method: yelling.

“Yes, and then _five_ hours ago I had a meeting with a representative for CorSec, a one Padrake Olin? I believe you and he–”

“–How _is_ Olin, these days?” Sidestep. Sidestep.

“ _Commander_ Olin is keeping well, and passes along his best wishes for your–” Leia stepped back and gestured with her hands at Hana, whose stomach dropped to the marble floor, “Your ongoing and upcoming _changes_.”

“Leia–” Hana began, and they both waited in expectant silence for her to finish the sentence.

“So of course I said, like an _idiot_ ,” Leia continued, “ _What_ changes?”

“Leia–” Hana interjected.

“Because of course I can _hold a galaxy together with my bare hands_ but FORCE-FUCKING-FORBID I KNOW SOMETHING _THIS IMPORTANT_ ABOUT _YOU_ BEFORE THE REST OF THE GALAXY–”

“–so, so you know,” Hana said, and retreated a step.

“Yes,” Leia said. The syllable dropped into the luxury acoustics of their ridiculous flat and went nowhere.

“So, uh, Princess–” Hana began again, and stopped. Even without having to actually broach the subject of her gender, this conversation had too many end points to calculate and conversations weren’t hyperdrives, to Hana’s everlasting discontent.

“Yes, Han?” Leia said to the floor.

Hana flinched, her whole body unprepared to deal with this. “It’s Hana.”

“What,” Leia said.

“Not Han. Han _a_ , that’s, that’s part of it.” Hana braced herself and her fingers sought out the assurance of her blasters, but of course those were in their safes, behind her. Hana, like so many times before Leia, was defenseless.

Leia paused and again flicked her gaze that had helped topple an empire up and down Hana’s form. “Hana,” she said, considering.

“Hana Solo, yes.”

“So you’re keeping the last name,” Leia said, side stepping.

“Yes, I’m keeping the—look, Leia, should I–” Hana gestured to the door. Leia looked blank. Hana took a step and thought of Hutts and Bespin and turning back to raise hell upon two not-a-moons and found that last rope she held onto in times like this, and asked quietly, “Leia, should I leave?”

Leia’s transformation from blank expression to incensed harpy would always be Hana’s second favorite type of Leia, and honestly, Hana provoked her half the time, but not now, not with this. “Now you’re _leaving_ me, Han- _a_. Hana? Hana. You’re all changed up and _leaving_ me, now?” Leia pointed at Hana.

“You _want_ me to leave? Is that it?” Hana said, and vowed to see how far into the Outer Reaches she could get on that half a tank of fuel before shutting off the ship. Chewie would be free of the life debt; Leia could hook up with whatever Prince of the week was being dangled in front of the new Republic like bait above a Sarlacc; Hana wouldn’t have to hear Leia say the world “leave” again.

Leia looked furious and stepped into Hana’s space, her pointed finger nearly touching Hana’s nose. “Don’t you go putting words in my mouth, you nerf-herder! Just because you can’t be _bothered_ to tell me before the _rest of the goddamn galaxy_ that, that—that you’re getting _happier_ doesn’t mean I want you to leave for a second, Hana.”

The tension, somewhat from the circumstances and partially from Leia’s Force abilities she was stubbornly ignoring, snapped.

Hana, who had taken a deep breath to fuel some more yelling, stopped. She raised one hand and wrapped it gently around Leia’s wrist. “You don’t want me to leave?” she repeated, to make sure.

Leia raised her hand to Hana’s cheek. “No, of course not, you ninny.”

Hana pointed to herself, “But I’m–”

“–A woman. I know. Well, now I do. And I had _assumed_ that you’d want to _talk that out_ with me, Hana, rather than letting me be _sideswiped_ by a casual comment from one of your old _Navy_ buddies–”

“Hey. Hey. Why do you think I’m here so fast? I could have spent the night on Corellia. I’ve got some debts to collect there, could have parked anywhere, picked up some Rum. I know how much Mothma likes that.”

Leia’s hand cupped Hana’s face and then she ran her thumb back and forth over her cheeks curiously. “You—what did you do to your beard?” 

“Pit stop on Chandrila, there’s a thing with lasers, _Leia_.” Hana stooped a bit and looked her in the eyes.

“What kind of regulatory practices are there for–” Leia’s eyes darted around Hana’s face, otherwise unchanged, looking for changes and revving up to apply her formidable organizing principles to this new problem. This was good, because fuck if _Hana_ knew what to do beyond the instinct that had driven her to a chatty cosmetologist droid to spend some of that Yavin IV medal money still lying around. Hana could see this was going to spin out into the exact information dump she’d come home for, but first, she had to make something clear.

“Leia. Leia I was coming back to tell you. I told the tailor on Corellia to keep his mouth shut. I was coming home to you.”

The gears behind Leia’s eyes continued to spin but she softened into Hana’s _favorite_ expression, the smile that was reserved for Hana alone. “You were?”

“Hey, you think I’m dumb enough to do this without you?”

Leia paused.

“I’m not, you know. Not anymore. That’s old Hana. Old Hana did dumb shit like that all the time and learned the hard way. New Hana–”

“–New Hana is my favorite,” Leia said and finally stepped in for an embrace. Hana placed her head on Leia’s and breathed in the familiar crisp-sweet smell of Leia’s _mela_ scented hair fixative.

“I like her too,” Hana murmured. They both breathed deep and let out long sighs together.

“Why now?” Leia said into Hana’s chest.

Hana attempted a light tone. “First chance to breathe, you know, since–”

“Since Endor, yes,” Leia finished.

Hana took a shaky breath and was very glad she couldn’t see Leia’s eyes. “Since I was born, really.” She could feel Leia tense up and could almost _see_ the Quick Timeline of One Hana Solo pass through Leia’s brain: Orphan, Thief, Navy Lieutenant, Deserter, Scoundrel, Spice Runner, Hutt Contractor, Hero, General, Lover. Hana felt Leia nod into her shirt and another knot in her back released.

Leia paused from where she had started to tap out a rhythm on Hana’s hip, right above her blood stripes. “You’ve told Chewie already, though,” she said, sure of the answer.

“Oh, of course I already told Chewie. I’m not _that_ dumb,” Hana said.

“And?” Leia asked.

“I told him just before I dropped him off at Kashyyk.”

“Wookies don’t have–”

“Oh, they have genders. He got it. He says now we _both_ have to make wedding crowns, for each other.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

And that _wasn’t_ it, not really. There was still the rest of the evening, and Hana finding time to piece together the parts of herself in and around Leia piecing together a galaxy. There was the salient question of would Hana even _look good_ in the skirt she’d commissioned, and then again if looking good even mattered. Hana knew Leia would make time for her, and would have ten painstaking plans where Hana just now had a blaring mental alarm and haphazard list of potential actions. Then there was Luke, not a question mark but just a conversation. Hana didn’t hold too much with the Force, but she could feel when she set her ship and herself on the right path to get to their destination, and if that was the Force than she sure as shit was one with it, now.

She and Leia would learn to dance again, not that Hana had done a good job before, but at least now she understood _why_ it was so damn annoying to be presumed to want the lead part. There would be Chewie’s flower crowns and a giant wedding filled with too many people, and Mon Mothma and her partner and Chewie and the scoundrels in Rogue One and filling out her jacket differently. Maybe a new jacket? Hana wasn’t thinking that far. Strategies were for Leia, after all. Hana hugged her close, tugged on a braid, and breathed.


End file.
